Great question. I've wondered the same thing. I also wonder if masks can reduce the viral load you are exposed to as well. Is this something they can determine in a lab? It also raises the question about the actual risk that health care workers are under given you would expect their chances of getting a high viral load is mich higher

Thanks for the info OP, good info I haven't seen.

As an aside, I've already accepted/prepared my mind for 2020 to be a "lost" year for College Football.

If for some miraculous reason it does happen, it'll be a great surprise/treat.

it definitely seems like people who are really sick tend to infect people who then also get very sick. The hot spot in Albany GA definitely anecdotal evidence

every time you take a drink of water, some of it was peed out by Jesus, or Hitler, or Joan of Arc. A mole is a mole. With these viruses, they have to be everywhere. There's some magic amount, probably specific for each person, that has to be ingested. And beyond that, some additional magic amount that triggers more severe illness, and gradations between mild and severe.

We're going to have a lot of good age and wellness data in short order, and I suspect we'll learn than the student-athlete demographic is at very nearly zero risk.

Keegan99 said:

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We're going to have a lot of good age and wellness data in short order, and I suspect we'll learn than the student-athlete demographic is at very nearly zero risk.

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That's what I think.

I wouldn't be surprised if by then they allow 10 to 20% of a full house to attend if the seats are spread out. Maybe just the most rich and/or hardcore fans will attend.

Well not to be insensitive but I predicted that if we don't go to the big show this year, we won't in my lifetime.

Necrosis said:

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Yes, this is why it is important to protect our frontline healthcare workers. No matter what variability of aerosol/droplet exposure, healthcare workers will come in contact with COVID. Nurses, respiratory therapists, and doctors will have to put plastic tubes down people's windpipes which puts them at a much greater risk of catching and dying from the virus. Several young physicians have already died in New York and Michigan.

As far as adjusting the risk for the public. We simply do not have enough information to make recommendations on returning to normal activity. Be patient.

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Overnight yet another 20K were cut off the total US death estimate from COVID. The models were supposed to already account for social distancing. Anecdotes of a few 'young doctors' dying aren't useful data any more than Rand Paul's recovery.

The time to let the CDC and 'public health experts' demand the economy remain closed until no new sad stories about this particular virus can be found, is passing very quickly. The truth is the shut-down is also putting a lot of our healthcare infrastructure at financial risk/ruin, as well; hospital bed utilization rates have plummeted.

Thomas Ford 91 said:

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I've prepared my family for the eventuality that we won't be going to the games this season. But, Aggie Football will happen. The, power 5 conferences will play. The whole college sports system collapses if power 5 football doesn't play.

That said, schools like UNT may only play the paycheck games.

Really worried for the BCS economy if they miss out on a season.

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So given the accuracy of all of your other predictions and statistics, we should prepare for the Ags to win the MNC.

I think I'm willing for the economy to suffer in order to save lives in the long run. Truman was willing to take the criticism in order to save American lives, not America's economy.

Necrosis said:

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So we should stop listening to scientists and let politicians dictate our public health policy?

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Do scientists model for total financial collapse? We are staring that in the face right now, doc. This is not that hard to understand. Total financial collapse means even your life will be significantly altered for the worse. It will dwarf any effects of COVID and our healthcare professionals MUST start thinking outside their bubble of scientific projections around this disease and start looking at the big picture. Fast.

PearlJammin said:

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Necrosis said:

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So we should stop listening to scientists and let politicians dictate our public health policy?

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Do scientists model for total financial collapse? We are staring that in the face right now, doc. This is not that hard to understand. Total financial collapse means even your life will be significantly altered for the worse. It will dwarf any effects of COVID and our healthcare professionals MUST start thinking outside their bubble of scientific projections around this disease and start looking at the big picture. Fast.

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The federal government/Federal Reserve has sucked trillions of dollars of value out of our futures already to fight this thing, and our present day ability to create value has been cut more severely than anyone has modeled.

Qualified health care personnel and other related scientists have a lot of respect/credibility and are justifiably holding everyone's attention right now, but ignoring the cost of action because you have expertise on the cost of inaction means your approach is incomplete.

We have no political leadership from any corner right now. Every action has a tradeoff, so everyone waits for the other guy to decide something and then beats their drum about how the downside of the others' action/inaction is unspeakably horrible, foolish and obviously it's because if the same old dumb narratives they believe with religious conviction.

This thing is a sh_t sandwich and no one knows how it's going to go with any kind of precision, and I don't think it would not have mattered whose "administration" was in charge. Everyone just sits around looking for someone else to blame. If Abbott or Cuomo or anyone down the political leadership food chain are waiting around for the CDC or the Fed or Department of Commerce before taking actions, then screw 'em.

Why are we pretending that the US is acting in a bubble? That we're the only ones listening to "only the scientists" (whatever that means) and going with shutdowns. The entire world is doing this. Do you not think the economics are not being considered?

Why is this being discussed in a viral load thread???

EDIT: left out an important word...

Because this forum is now a politics forum unfortunately.

The viral load idea has been something that has been kicked around the last couple of weeks. We know in animal models that if you give mice 10x5 of one pathogen (just a hypothetical) vs 10x6 or 10x7, the survival curves differ greatly and the pathogens reach different organs in the body and disease presentation can be completly different. Thus it makes some sense why people experience different outcomes, however other host factors like genetics and other comorbidities probably play just as big if not a larger role in disease outcomes.

Unfortunately we will never be able to do this experiment, so we will never really know the role this played.

ETFan said:

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Why are we pretending that the US is acting in a bubble? That we're the only ones listening to "only the scientists" (whatever that means) and going with shutdowns. The entire world is doing this. Do you not think the economics are being considered?

Why is this being discussed in a viral load thread???

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Because it's not being handled the same way across the globe at all. Japan didn't close down like this. Denmark is re-opening. Sweden never did. The list goes on and on. Even Wuhan is opening again.

And the fact of the matter is our 'experts' like Dr. Fauci have a long history which we should take into account from a policy perspective.

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In fact, results matter so little for "essential" people like Dr. Fauci that he still openly brags about his risibly false prediction that "AIDS would not stay confined to the populations where it first appeared" and become "a disaster for society." Dr. Fauci's bold lack of concern for epidemiological reality is exactly what's needed to guide us through this crisis.

He's also understandably proud that, after years of being vilified by AIDS activists for "killing people with red tape," he eventually realized that "much of their criticism was absolutely valid" and held off on killing any more. Who said noblesse oblige was dead?

Dr. Fauci's completely bogus scare-mongering and deadly policy recommendations the last time he directed our efforts against a new pathogen aren't the only reason we need to blindly follow his advice about this one. Though curing AIDS was his number-one priority, it was left to scientists in Europe to discover an effective treatment. But you know what they completely failed to do? Spend unimaginably large sums of money. Their successful treatment barely cost a dime compared to the tens of billions of your tax dollars Dr. Fauci pried from Congress to fund his failure. That's the true measure of success for any "essential" bureaucrat.

Without Dr. Fauci, who'll save you the next time some computer model produces scary numbers that its designers explicitly admit depend on "very large uncertainties"? Who'll destroy the economy and confine you to house arrest based on the work of people explicitly warning that it's "not at all certain" such measures will even accomplish anything?

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Japan didn't close down like this.

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For the record, yesterday Japan declared a month long state of emergency for much of the country, granted police lockdown enforcement powers, companies and restaurants and bars are closing or preparing to close at a fast rate, and they announced about $1 trillion in economic stimulus.

ETFan said:

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Why are we pretending that the US is acting in a bubble? That we're the only ones listening to "only the scientists" (whatever that means) and going with shutdowns. The entire world is doing this. Do you not think the economics are being considered?

Why is this being discussed in a viral load thread???

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Because the forum 16 folks won't stay on forum 16. They're ruining this forum.

"Even Wuhan is opening again"

Exactly - they shut down for 60+ days, flattened the curve and now are able to reopen. From internal reporting in my company their economic activity is rapidly returning to normal with most of the gap being in long lead durable goods. This is what will happen here if we give the shutdown long enough to work and we coordinate. It does no good for Louisiana to shutdown if Arkansas doesn't and becomes a reservoir of virus hosts.

Wuhan is still more locked down than we are.

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Prevention measures such as wearing masks, temperature checks and limiting access to residential communities will remain in place in Wuhan.

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Tall barriers continue to surround housing compounds in Wuhan and residents can only leave if they have a green health code or documents showing a valid reason.

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